Inconceivable
by LdyAnne
Summary: Teyla and Kanaan are called away for an emergency, Rodney is called upon for his expert assistance. Written for the SGAgenficathon. My prompt was Inconceivable.


From Websters: **:** not conceivable: as a**:** impossible to comprehend b**:** unbelievable

Rodney had been looking forward to his bath all day. Baths had become his favorite time to brainstorm and let his mind wander freely. And it was almost ready.

The bubbles were just the right consistency of bubbliness.

He'd poured oil into the water that scented the warm, moist air of his bathroom with pine and sandalwood.

The water was just the right temperature, not quite scalding, it was just hot enough to unknot knotted muscles and relax him.

He had a snack of cheese and crackers and those almost-grapes that they traded for sitting on the ledge.

He was just getting ready to undress and slide into the warm, scented water that was calling to him when the chime of his door sounded.

He groaned. For a fraction of a second he considered not answering. It had been a long day with two near-death experiences that were only narrowly averted because of his genius. All he wanted now was to sink into the bath and forget the day. The chime sounded again, more insistently this time he thought.

Suddenly he was seized with righteous anger that he couldn't even take a bath without being interrupted. He stalked through his quarters with the express intent of telling whoever was standing at his door that they could take care of whatever emergency there was this time by themselves. Ultimately Rodney knew it was useless, he didn't want the city to blow up or sink or any of the other dozen calamities he could think of offhand which would be the end result if he didn't answer his door. He'd just feel better for ranting.

The door slid aside at his instruction. Rodney had already drawn breath to begin his tirade only to stop himself mid-word when he found Teyla standing at his door, Torren wrapped in a bundle in her arms.

"Teyla," he said, feeling a little cheated that he wasn't going to get to have his tirade after all. Not that he didn't rant at Teyla, he had plenty of times, but she had a tight, worried look to her eyes that begged him not to.

"Rodney, I have come to ask for your help," Teyla said. She had a bag slung over her shoulder. Rodney could see a bottle at the top peeking over the edge.

"Of course, Teyla," he said slowly. He had a bad feeling about what was coming next.

"There has been an accident at the Athosian settlement. They need Kanaan and I there immediately to help. Would you mind…?" she held Torren out to him, her eyes beseeching.

Rodney shifted, watching her warily. Teyla had really never asked anything of him in all the time he'd known her. Sure he'd saved her life once or twice, but she'd more than returned the favor on that front. Besides, they were team, it was what they did for each other.

Rodney swallowed as he tentatively accepted the sleeping bundle of baby, "Is this what I've been reduced to? A babysitter?" he snapped. It was more for form's sake than because he protested the task. "Surely there's someone better suited to this?" Torren settled into his arms making little baby smacking noises with his lips. Rodney was horrified at the thought that the baby was probably thinking about his dinner.

"I am sorry, Rodney, there is no one else. John is piloting us so that we can get there as quickly as possible and so that he may help. Dr. Keller is going also so that she may begin treatment as soon as possible." Her eyes pleaded with Rodney.

He was about to give in, he really was, when Torren began to fuss in his arms and a foul smell assaulted Rodney's nose. He wrinkled up his affronted nose and thought furiously of someone, anyone, who could take over this task.

"What about Ronon…" he began.

Teyla shook her head. "He is going to accompany us also to see if he can be of any assistance. I am sorry, Rodney, I can see that this is too much to ask." She gave a frustrated, tired sigh as she reached out to take the baby from him.

Rodney couldn't believe it that, instead of handing the stinking bundle of baby back to her, he took a step back.

"No, no," he heard himself say, "It's alright. I'll do it." He was as astonished as Teyla to hear the words come out of his mouth."

Teyla wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly, "Thank you, Rodney McKay. I will return as soon as I can." She slid the pack off of her shoulder and handed it to him.

"He will be ready for his bottle soon," she said. She pushed a stray stand of hair back from her face, she looked tired and worn. "You must burp him after he has eaten in order to…"

"I can take care of this," Rodney told her snappishly. Now that he'd said he would do it, he could see her worry for her son warring with her desire to be there for her people. "I build bombs in my spare time, how hard can it be to take care of one little baby?" He said in an awkward attempt to alleviate her worry.

A smile broke out over her face, relief he could see. "Not hard at all. Thank you, Rodney." She stepped forward again and pressed her forehead to his. Then she took a step back and the door slid shut, leaving Rodney with an armful of stinky, fussing infant.

"Oh, that just went well, didn't it?" he said to no one in particular.

He stood in the middle of the room irresolute as to what to do next. The smell rising up from the baby convinced him to get moving soon enough though.

"I'm the foremost expert on Ancient technology," he told Torren as he laid the child down on the bed (after first laying down a towel to protect his covers). "I can reverse engineer any piece of technology you give me, I've been known to save the entire city on a moment's notice, more than once, but now I've been reduced to the role of _sitter_." He gazed down at the stinky mess in front of him unsure where to begin.

Torren seemed unconcerned that Rodney was wading into unexplored territory. He just cooed and blew bubbles with his spit.

Rodney rooted around in the bag until he found a clean diaper. It was a cloth diaper, the kind that you had to use safety pins to fasten. They'd all (Rodney) volunteered to order the easier-to-use disposable diapers from the Milky Way Galaxy. Caldwell, in an unexpected moment of generosity, had even said he'd make space on the Daedalus for them.

Teyla insisted that she use cloth diapers for Torran.

"I have read of your disposable diapers," she told them with her Earth-ways-are-strange smile, "and I do not wish to use them for Torren." So cloth it was.

Rodney was proud of the fact that he managed to get Torren cleaned up and his diaper changed without throwing up, although there was a lot of choking and gagging involved. It just made Torren laugh and giggle.

"See," Rodney told Torren when he was done, "that wasn't so hard." Torren waved his chubby baby fists in agreement. However when Rodney picked him up again, the diaper stayed behind on the bed.

After consulting the Atlantis intranet and (surprisingly) finding instructions for changing a diaper, it only took Rodney ten minutes to figure out how to get the diaper to stay on Torren. By that time Torren was getting fussy.

Rodney knew how he felt.

What *was* he going to do with the stinky diaper? His room was already beginning to smell of eau-do-stinky-baby and he wasn't sure that Atlantis air-recycling system was good enough to handle it. He couldn't just throw it away, because it was i_cloth_/i and Teyla would know.

He finally settled on putting it in a plastic bag that Jeannie had wrapped something in in a care package she'd sent him and setting it outside his door. Sure, it would stink up his hallway, but better the hallway than his room.

By that time, Torren had gone from fussing to outright crying. It was a sad little wail Rodney thought, wanting his mother.

Yeah, Rodney wished Teyla was back, too, taking care of her son. He knew math and science. Those had definite rules and as long as you knew those rules, you could manipulate it and use it.

Babies? Well babies didn't have rules. They couldn't tell you what was making them squeeze up their eyes and clench their tiny little baby fists and make tears track down their cheeks. It made Rodney's chest ache weirdly. He thought he might cry just in sympathy with the miserable baby.

He picked Torren up, patting his back tentatively. That had no effect except to make Torren cry even more piteously.

Remembering Teyla's instructions that he would need to have a bottle soon, Rodney said, "Maybe you're hungry." He was getting a little desperate. There was something about the crying baby that made him want to do something, anything, to get him to stop. "I know I'm hungry."

Rodney went into the bathroom to retrieve his own snack. He looked at the bath longingly. It had been long enough that the luxurious billow of bubbles were now mostly gone. They were reduced instead to an oily film clouding the water. He huffed out an exasperated breath before he gave a silent instruction and the water began to drain. He picked up his snack of cheese and crackers and went back to the other room.

He sat in his comfortable chair (He'd actually stolen it from Sheppard, it wasn't like the other man would miss it, he always sat on his bed) with Torren settled into the crook of his arm. Picking up the bottle, he held it tentatively to Torren's lips. He wondered anxiously if there was a certain technique you were supposed to use when feeding a baby.

Rodney maybe hadn't ever fed a baby before, but Torren knew what he was doing. His mouth opened eagerly for the bottle. Rodney held the baby and marvelled at him as Torren sucked contentedly, his little fingers clutching at Rodney's fingers where they held the bottle steady.

Feeding was a successful operation, much to Rodney's delight, although he didn't get much to eat what with juggling the baby in one arm and holding the bottle with the other, but he was satisfied at the end anyway at Torren's happy gurgle.

He raised the baby to his shoulder and patted at his back, wondering how hard to pat and if he'd know if he actually managed to burp Torren. After only a couple of light pats Torren let out a belch that would have made Ronon proud.

"Well, that sounded like a belch to me." Rodney held Torren out at arm's length. Torren agreed with another happy gurgle and a kick of his feet.

All in all, Rodney thought he was turning out to be pretty good at this whole babysitting thing. He might even volunteer to do it more often.

Twenty minutes later Rodney was revising his opinion on the matter.

"Oh, come on," he told the crying baby in despair. "You've got to go to sleep some time."

He got up and paced the room. That seemed to quiet Torren a little, but then, when he laid the baby down on the bed to see if Torren would drop off to sleep, the pitiful little cries picked up again.

Rodney didn't know how long Torren could keep it up. He'd always thought he was pretty stubborn, there was no way a baby could out stubborn him. He thought he could just let the baby cry until he fell asleep. But after only a couple of minutes of listening to Torren's heartfelt wails, Rodney picked him again, afraid that it might break his heart.

So he paced. As long as he walked Torren was quiet, not really asleep, his eyes were open in mere slits, watching Rodney. The second Rodney sat or stopped to rest, the crying began again in earnest.

It wasn't long before Rodney was sick of pacing the confines of his room, so he took to the hallway. As long as he was moving Torren seemed to be content, so Rodney headed for the lab. Radek had been working late on an experiment when Rodney left for the evening. He could go see if Radek had had any success.

However, when Rodney arrived, the lab was silent and dark, everything was put away. He started to sit down at his own workstation. He could work with a baby slung over his shoulder (he'd certainly managed to work with worse handicaps – like an arrow in his ass), but Torren would have none of it. The moment Rodney sat and was settled comfortably, the baby began to fuss and cry.

"Oh, come on!" Rodney snapped, exasperated at the baby's intolerance. It just made Torren cry harder.

With a weary sigh Rodney headed back for the hall. The minute he stood up and was moving, Torren's tears stopped and his wails trailed off into little snuffles.

So, Rodney showed Torren his city. He made a special point of pointing out the lab where they had found the nano-virus that had nearly killed everyone the expedition's first year in the city.

"You have to be careful when you're dealing with Ancient stuff," Rodney told the baby seriously. Torren blinked up at him sleepily. "The Ancients weren't too careful about putting their stuff away and they don't know how to mark the dangerous stuff for shit." He paused and looked down at Torren, suddenly alarmed. "Oh, don't tell your mom I said shit, she'll kick my ass."

Torren smiled up at him, Rodney thought he agreed.

"She's pretty tough, your mom," Rodney informed Torren. "But she's also pretty cool. You remember that when you're sixteen and in your rebellious phase."

He took Torren to the biolab they'd discovered. Rodney turned on a recording of the whale song they'd found in the database. That almost seemed to lull the baby but when Rodney sat down at the workstation, Torren's eyes struggled open again. He peered up at Rodney expectantly.

"Oh, alright," Rodney said. He pushed himself up giving a silent command for the room to shut down.

They weren't too far from the corridors where he and Sheppard raced the cars that Sheppard had shipped from Earth.

"Now you have to be careful with your Uncle John," he whispered to the baby, "he's a cheating cheater who cheats."

They ended their tour of Atlantis in the pod room where Carson was placed into stasis. Rodney and Torren stood in front of the stasis chamber.

"This is Carson Beckett," he told Torren solemnly. "He's a doctor and my friend. Now, don't think he's a real scientist just because he's a doctor, that's just so much voodoo." Torren yawned wide and smacked his lips before letting his eyes slide closed. Finally.

Unexpectedly Rodney felt a wave of fierce protectiveness sweep over him for the small child in his arms. He couldn't imagine Torren in the hands of the Wraith, having his life taken from him. This child and others like him were what they were really in Pegasus to protect. He wasn't going to let anything happen to Torren that he could prevent.

"Don't worry," Rodney whispered fiercely to the child sleeping in his arms. "I'll make sure you know everything you need to know about real science."

He headed back to his own quarters. He kicked off his shoes and lay down on the bed next to the sleeping baby, determined to be there if the child woke up in the night and needed him.

* * *

Teyla returned hours later. No one had died, although the injuries from the landslide had been significant. She was tired to her soul. She wanted nothing more than to get her son and go home to Kanaan and hold them both close. She hoped that Rodney would see how tired and worn she was, because, while she normally took his irascible nature in stride and did not take offense, she did not think she could bear it this night.

She reached out to trigger the chime for his door and was surprised when the door just slid aside. After a minute's pause she took a step inside.

The room was dim, but not dark. There was gentle music playing, but otherwise the room was quiet. She looked around until she spied Rodney's supine form on his bed, apparently fast asleep.

She tiptoed in, not wanting to disturb him, but irresistibly drawn to the sight of Rodney McKay curled up protectively around Torren. Her son, who would never rest when he was left with strangers, was sound asleep in the curve of Rodney's arm. The covers had been kicked to the bottom of the bed so she pulled them up over the sleeping child and man before going back to her own quarters.

"Torren?" Kanaan asked when she entered their room empty handed.

"He is well cared for this night," Teyla said as she slipped into their bed, pressing herself into his warmth. "We can get him tomorrow."

She drifted into sleep knowing that her son was well cared for and well loved. What more could a mother wish for her son?


End file.
